Typical Argentina..

Yesterday:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/29/argentina.strikes/index.html

The subway strikes are really annoying ... it is near impossible to catch a bus during a subway strike because there are just so many people! Better just start walking ....

New favorite snack.

Dried pineapple from this chain of health food stores called GranDiet. No added sugar! (Somewhat) economical! Tastes like candy!

I Took An Old-Person Bus Tour: Mendoza

This weekend Amanda, Emily, and I went to Mendoza for 3 days. Mendoza is a western province of Argentina in the Central Andes. It's where the majority of Argentinean wine is produced...almost the whole province is either vineyards or mountains.

The first afternoon we toured 2 different 'bodegas' or wineries/vineyards and an olive oil farm/factory. The first one, San Humberto was medium-sized, and the second one was called Familia Caccari or something like that, and was smaller and all organically grown. The wine tours were actually kind of boring, but if you're going to Mendoza you kind of have to tour wineries, or else your trip wouldn't really be complete. I did learn some things about wine: grapes grow best in dry weather (it's very dry in Mendoza), wine is aged in barrels of specific types of wood to affect taste, when you taste wine you should only hold the glass by the stem (to not affect temperature), and there are 2 different smells from wine (primary smell is the original unshaken scent, comes from the grapes, and the secondary smell is the smell after you swirl it a little, and that comes from the production process).

The second day we went west of the city to go white water rafting on the Rio Mendoza, which was really fun! I'd never been rafting before, so it was something new and fun to do. The rapids weren't that big, it was Class III and IV rapids, because the water level was low, but it was still really really fun. That afternoon they had a rappel set up, so we got to do a rappel, and then we went with a guide on a hike that afternoon.

Then on Sunday, we had signed up with our hostel for a day trip called "High Andes Adventure", which took you out to the Chilean border to see all the important sites in the mountains (Puente de la Inca, Aconcagua (highest peak in Western Hemisphere), and some little towns along the way). Anyway, by the title of the excursion, we were expecting some sort of exciting tour, likely some hiking, 'que sé yo!'. Well, we were very wrong .... it turned out to literally be an old person bus tour. Haha. Funny to think about in retrospect, but it was a pretty boring tour! We DID get to see the exciting parts of the Andes, but then again, it was from the inside of a bus filled with 50+ year olds! The most entertaining part of the trip was watching the interaction of the guide-woman, the driver, and the photographer. They were each quite strange, and didn't get along that well, haha. We did get some awesome pictures though, and I'll post them once my friends post theirs .... (no camera...)

Hostel Musings

1) Why are the showers at hostels all so horrible? Is it really that hard to get either a. hot water or b. water pressure or c. both? What is the common problem with hostel plumbing that makes the above unavailable?

2) The crowd they attract. Interesting, indeed. From old couples (cost cutting maybe?) to middle age single women traveling alone, to Chilean 24-year-olds looking to party all night long (literally until 7 am, when other hostel guests, namely us, wake up, or rather, get up after having listened to their party all night long!), European backpackers, and American study abroad kids.

3) How can a hostel get away with having non-functional Internet?

The 3 points above may make me seem bitter, but I like hostels! (This post is referring to the hostel I stayed in this weekend in Mendoza, btw) Well, I like paying only $9 a night for a place to store luggage, a bed, and breakfast and coffee in the morning! The rest...I can leave to only muse about after the trip.

Córdoba Trip!

Last weekend my two girlfriends and I went to Córdoba for a couple days. I really really loved the trip - it was a nice change of pace from life in BA, good to see some landscape that doesn't involve city streets, and we got to do really awesome things.

We left on Wednesday night from the Retiro bus station .... this time we paid less for bus tickets (100 pesos each way), which came with unfortunately a downgrade in seat-comfort. I still slept Wednesday night, but it was definitely really uncomfortable and cramped. Also, no meal service. :-( I sat next to this high school boy who helped me translate a lot of words for the reading I was doing though, so that was nice!

On Thursday, we went to La Cumbre - a little village 2 hours north of Córdoba city (where we based ourselves in a hostel). I really love La Cumbre, it is so peaceful, the people were incredibly friendly and helpful, everyone seemed to know each other ... it was great! We got there, did a short hike up to a lookout over the town and the Sierras, and then called up a paragliding instructor to take us paragliding! La Cumbre is famous for its paragliding ... there is a take-off spot 8 km out of the town called Cuchi Corral that hosted some World Paragliding Championships a couple years ago, and since then it's gotten a lot of news for its paragliders. Anyway, we called the instructors, met them in town, and had a coffee with them for awhile while we waited for the wind to calm down. They then took us up to Cuchi Corral where we again waited for the wind to calm down/change direction ..... it was a really pretty day out, and the view from Cuchi Corral is beautiful, so it wasn't a painful wait at all. Unfortunatley, the wind never changed and it wasn't possible for us to take off that afternoon.... but they offered to take us the next day instead. Since paragliding was pretty high on our list of things to do in Córdoba, we agreed to come back to Cumbre the next morning.

We left Córdoba (the capital, where we stayed overnight) at 7 the next morning, to get back to Cumbre at 9 and meet the instructors again. This time, the wind was perfect! Paragliding was really amazing - not scary at all, absolutely no work for you, and we got some really awesome views! I'm really glad I went - definitely recommend it as a thrilling, but not scary or overwhelming activity.

After paragliding, we spent more time hanging out in La Cumbre and then took the 2 hr bus back again to Córdoba. That night we actually had a bit of a fiasco with hostels .... I booked a reservation online through a 3rd party, and it turns out it didn't translate into the hostels reservation log. The weekend was incredibly popular for visitors because it was the last weekend of Oktoberfest, so literally every single hostel in the area (not even just the capital!) was booked. We ended up paying more for a hotel room ... which was actually (in my opinion) worth it ... the breakfast the next morning was likely the best continental breakfast I've ever gotten at a hotel! It was nice to have our own room too, instead of sleep with other random people in a hostel.

On Saturday we woke up and went 2 hours south of Córdoba Capital to Villa General Belgrano - where the Oktoberfest festival is held every year. It is kind of strange going into Villa Gral. Belgrano....it is a little German enclave in the middle of the mountains. Signs are in German, the buildings look German, and they serve all this German food year-round. Kind of strange, but interesting. I think it may have originally been a Nazi escape community? Not sure about the history of that one, but I heard a couple times something to do with Nazis, maybe a sunken ship, not sure. Anyway, Oktoberfest was a lot of fun too - we met a lot of people from all over the country, not just Buenos Aires or even Córdoba. It was interesting to hear all the different accents ... the accent I'm now used to is just specific to Buenos Aires, so most people's accents sounded strange to me!

We came back to Córdoba that night from Villa Gral. Belgrano and immediately got on our long bus back to BA ... we had intended to stay another day actually, but didn't want to split another hotel room and we'd already had a really amazing weekend. Also, I had a midterm on Wednesday that still required quite a bit of studying .... (which turned out okay, by the way!)

I'll post my pictures on this post once my friend uploads her. Unfortunately, I may have left my camera on one of the million buses we took last weekend ... :-(

Counterfeit Money

This weekend I lost 50 pesos in counterfeit money, which was really annoying. I think there's a real problem of counterfeiting here, so everyone is always really careful about checking. (Except me, apparently). It had a 'watermark' (that I guess was not really a watermark at all) so I was convinced it was real even though 2 stores wouldn't accept it. I eventually went to a bank to ask, and they (after a minute or two of scrutiny, I guess it was a good counterfeit) confirmed. That now brings my total up to 90 pesos lost in counterfeit money! Ugh. Oh well.

On a happier note - my two girlfriends and I are planning a trip to Córdoba for this weekend, leaving Wednesday night on an overnight bus and coming home on a Sunday night overnight bus. I'm looking forward to it!